Hold The Mustard

October 20, 2008

I don’t know at what point I realized that I was doomed to one of the worst public humiliations of my parenting experience, but it might have been when the elderly lady walked in on Jasper and I in the ladies’ restroom at our local Kelsey’s restaurant and noticed a) his nakedness, b) the slick of mustard poo coating that nakedness, c) the slick of mustard poo coating me, and d) the slick of mustard poo coating every visible surface in the room, and then, without a word, turned on her heel and walked back out again.

We hadn’t planned to go out to dinner Saturday night. But we’d ended up driving out to the countryside to visit friends and hadn’t planned for dinner and so had hatched the ill-conceived plan to just stop on the way home so that Emilia might fall asleep in the car afterwards. It occurred to me at some point that our car-stash of diapers and pull-up pants and wipes was low, but I reasoned that Emilia would use the toilet at the restaurant – she’s been using the toilet fairly reliably – and that we could make it through the evening with just a spare pull-up and no wipes. I forgot that we also had a baby, and that at five months old, he’s unable to use the toilet and, you know, control his bowel movements.

We’d been at the restaurant for about twenty minutes when Jasper started to fuss.

“He probably needs a change,” I said. I did a mental calculation of baby supplies on hand. Zero. “You’re going to have to go out to the car,” I told my husband. “There should be a diaper in the backseat.” I figured that I might have a wipe or two in a crumpled-up travel pack of no-name wipes in my bag. I didn’t bother to check.

So it was that five minutes later I was in the ladies’ restroom with a baby in need of a change and only one diaper, no change of clothes, and one or two dessicated wipes. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, necessarily, if said baby wasn’t loaded from stem to stern with – how to put this? – a shitload of effluent that had just begun leaking through his clothes.

Leaking through his clothes and onto mine.

Leaking through his clothes and onto my clothes and onto the floor.

Leaking through his clothes and onto my clothes and onto the floor and onto my feet.

Mustard poo, as any new parent knows, does not, strictly speaking, smell like poo. It has a sort of cloying, sweet organic smell, like the smell of dead roses, or of rotting fruit, or wet hay, with a bit of a sharp, mustardy edge to it. I had a lot of time to think about this as I wrestled my fat, naked, poo-slicked baby in the ladies’ restroom of the Bowmanville Kelsey’s. I had a lot of time to think about this, because it is very, very difficult to clean a poo-slicked baby in a public restroom with only one wipe. Actually, it is very nearly impossible to clean a poo-slicked baby in a public restroom with only one wipe. Which is why I spent close to half an hour just standing around in my poo-stained shirt, holding the naked poo-slicked baby and a clutch of paper towels and wondering what the f*** I was supposed to do, during which time the elderly woman wandered into the restroom, correctly assessed the situation as off-putting to one’s dinner, and exited immediately.

I needed to act. I knew that if I took much longer, one of a number of things was going to happen: 1) someone else would come in wanting to use the restroom, which by this point looked like the set of one of those alien movies where aliens get slaughtered and splatter gummy yellow effluent over every surface, 2) my husband would send the server – who was maybe twenty-years old and prone to responding to every request with a giggle and ‘okay, awesome!’ – in to find me, which would contribute nothing but nervous tittering and an added element of spectacle to the scene, 3) Jasper would release another blast of poo and I would burst into tears, or 4) all of the above.

So, gripping Jasper under one arm, I filled the sink with soap and water, dipped him butt-first into the bubbles and scrubbed at him with paper towels. Then I threw paper towels over the change table, three or four layers thick, for later wiping, and shoved some more paper towels against my poo-smeared chest so that Jasper wouldn’t get re-smeared when I held him against me. Then – still one-arming it – I pulled the clean diaper onto him, and his wee cardigan, which had mercifully escaped being shat upon. I contemplated tossing his clothes into the wastebasket, but decided that that would just prolong the smell, and so I wrapped them in more paper towels and then – holding Jasper an inch from my damp, decoupaged chest and summoning every ounce of dignity I could muster – marched back through the restaurant to my husband.

“Take him,” I said, “and get the waitress to bring a plastic bag for this.” I dumped the paper-towel wrapped package of poo-soaked clothing on my chair, grabbed my own cardigan, and walked back the restroom, where I stripped off my reeking, soaking shirt and shoved in the wastebasket. Then, clad only in my bra, I scrubbed myself down – myself and all the other surfaces slicked with poo – before zipping my cardigan over my more-or-less naked but also more-or-less shit-free chest and heading back out into the restaurant and to my family: Jasper now clean and settled back in his carseat, my husband holding out a large glass of red wine for me, and my daughter grinning madly over a plate of mini-hamburgers.

And clutching a big squeeze-bottle of mustard.

If we never go out for dinner again it will be too soon.

If you have a worse poo story, I’d like to hear it. Also, I’d like to know if I’m the only parent who regularly finds herself short of supplies at critical moments, because a former grad-school colleague just messaged me saying ‘good story, but when I’m a parent I’m going to keep a package of diapers in the car’ and I was all, like, ‘ha ha good luck with that’ until I realized that maybe my particular form of slacker parenting is not the norm and that, perhaps, I should be deeply embarrassed about my general ineptitude. Yes/no?

I def do not have any stories to top this- but I have had the mustard poo coming up out of the top of shorts- in a restaurant- and toddler REFUSES to get on the restroom changing table- so I am forced to change the diaper while he is STANDING in the restroom—HORRIBLE.I have dealt with same sick toddler, who had MAJOR diaheraa for a few days- I, the smartest mommy ever, put said toddler down for a nap while I then nap myself. I wake up 1 hour later to check on toddler- to find him: 1. Passed out face down asleep, 2. In NO diaper (he had pulled it down like pants, so it was now around his ankles, 3. COVERED in POOP—and not just him, the walls, the crib, the sheets, his HANDS, his FEET, he has done some major artwork.Lesson learned- toddler not allowed to sleep in diaper only, EVER>

There was the time when I was taking my sick little youngest kiddo (aroun 16 mos at the time) to the doctor and suddenly smelled Something. Oh My God. When I arrived at the office, I discovered that he had explosive diarrhea that had oozed all over him, his clothes, the car seat, everything. And it smelled worse than ANY FF poo or any other sick poo I’d ever had the displeasure of smelling. I walked in cradling him as far from me as possible (thank God it was warm and I was in short sleeves) and the nurses immediately escorted us past all the horrified people in the waiting room directly to an examination room to deal with the problem. And of course I’d forgotten the diaper bag. So I was trying to deal with the evil-smelling mess with paper towels and Kleenex until they finally rescued me with some actual wipes, dunking The Widget (crying pitifully the whole time, poor feverish thing) in that cold stainless steel sink, and the nurse was following me everywhere with a bottle of antiseptic spray and paper towel wiping away the germ-laden poo stains that were Everywhere. And of course The Widget had to ride home clad only in a diaper (thank God, again, for warm weather) with about an inch thick wad of paper towel protecting him from the poo-covered car seat.

The doctor said she could tell he had a rotavirus just by the smell alone wafting down the hall–she had a diagnosis before she even walked in.

On the bonus side, it was the fastest I’ve ever gotten into an examination room and seen the doctor!

when daughter # 3 was 2 months old my husband and i had to go to church for a baptism class any how my husband best bud watched our children and had to change her diaper and while he was changing her she shot out some more mustard goo and covered his pant leg.he wasn’t very impressed with that….and when same daughter was 12 months we were in guatemala on vacation and poor baby got the runs and crapped in her diaper while on daddys shoulders it was seeping through her diaper and clothes and running down my husbands back…it was actually pretty scary then but now its hilarious….

Well, knock on wood, fingers and toes crossesd…I have somehow managed to dodge the poo bullet. Sure, there has been a squirt here and a trickle there, but nothing like these hilarious experiences. Still have one in diapers, though. I live in fear!

That was a truly impressive poop story. And some of the ones in the comments – even poopier!

I’m mostly impressed by how you had the presence of mind to fill the sink with soap and water, and just get on with it. At my son’s poo-nami stage I was in the depths of PPD so I probably would have just sat down and started crying until my hubby came in to see what the hell was taking so long.

FWIW, I almost *never* remember to have any extra supplies with me. I used to have an extra bag of diapers in the car but it of course was gone the first time I needed it.

Can I tell my story even though it happened over 17 years ago? My then 11-month old son was on antibiotics for an ear infection. My (childless) sister and I were at a Friendly’s Restaurant at a large mall. Joe was playing happily in the restaurant’s wooden high chair when I heard it. And saw it. Diarrhea. Because he was sitting down, it went up his back, out the sides, all over the chair. I quickly grabbed him and ran to the restroom. I had diapers and wipes, but no clean clothes for him. I ended up carrying him thru the mall naked but for his diaper. Talk about poor white trash.

Oh, and I asked the waitress for something to clean the high chair with. She gave me a dishcloth. I made sure I threw it away.

My sister (did I mention she was childless?) sat there and gagged the whole time.

This happened to me ONCE, and never again. When Punky was 18-months, I took her to the gym nursery without an extra diaper or a change of clothes- Since she had already pooped that day and I lived five minutes down the road, I figured we’d be safe.

Within 20 minutes, my name was called over the intercom. I ran to the nursery and my daughter was sitting on the carpet smiling, poo spurting out the back of her diaper onto her back and all over the floor. Four tanned, toned, twenty-something gym workers were on their knees around her, frantically cleaning poo off the carpet. It was EVERYWHERE and the nursery had no wipes or diapers.

I ended up cleaning her off with paper towels from the bathroom, wrapping her naked in a blanket from the car, strapping her in the carseat with the blanket wrapped like a toga around her, and driving home. Thank God it wasn’t very cold outside.

And I NEVER left home without an arsenal of diapers, wipes, clothing, and receiving blankets AGAIN.

I don’t think this is a worse poo story than yours, but I did have something similar happen to me. When Oliver was a baby he did three things: he ate, he screamed and he shat. When he did the latter it was brutal – Dave and I called them Poo Tsunami’s – we’d open the diaper and poo would seep out…that is, if it hadn’t seeped out already and pooled in the feet of his sleeper.

My similar situation happened in a pediatrician’s office; we were there to discuss his excessive pooping. A new, inexperienced mother of two, I had no change of clothes, about two wipes to my name (I needed about 7,927 more) and only one clean diaper. There was poop everywhere – all over him, all over me, all over the doctor’s office.

One time, I ran into kmart to buy something quick with my one year old. Just threw him on my hip, and ran in. 1) He peed. 2) He peed ALL OVER ME. I was frozen… The child had a diaper on, and so I couldn’t figure out why I was wet all the way into my shoes. Turns out that my mother hadn’t changed a diaper since me. And I wore cloth. And she put his diaper on backwards. In another instance, I was in a fairly similar situation as you – without that last diaper. So. My child was dressed in an old t-shirt of my husband’s, sans bottoms, from the back of the car, until we got home (praying “don’t go, don’t go, don’t go” the whole way.) The end result was not leaving the house without a stocked diaper bag. And I mean stocked. As in, my husband actually told me that maybe I didn’t need to bring all that, what with the children potty trained and talking in full sentences and all. Sigh.

I was helping my sister try on bridesmaid dresses. She decided she wanted to change my 3 month old son’s diaper in the dressing room (who was I to say no?). She has one diaper off and he shoots a whole watery load of poo all over her! I still laugh about it to this day!

Nope. Sorry. 3 kids, and I can’t recall a poop incident quite that bad. But I did take my baby to the mall and didn’t bring enough bottles. Felt like crap when my friend says, “You should always bring at least 2.” Yeah, I know.

I thought I had a bad one but no it wasn’t that bad at all. I was at emergency with my totally liquid diarrheaed child and she went while we were there and it was all up her clothes and all in her stroller which she was sitting in. I went to bathroom to find I had one wipe. I ened up using wet papertowels while her butt was in small sink (barely fit) and then wiped stroller to best of my ability and layered papertowels on top of that. Then I washed out baby clothes and wrapped them in papertowel, later asking for a bag. Sounds similar but I didn’t have it ALL over me like you. You handled it very well!

Oh and yes I find myself without what I need all the time and I would have been very mad to get a comment saying to have diapers in car at all times. I thought I’d be doing that too. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.

I’ve actually had to ask strangers on the street (we were out of town in St. Augustine, I think, or somewhere anyway) for a diaper. And I’ve had strangers on the street ask me for a diaper. So there you have it – prepared? Umm, no. And poo stories? Oh yeah. Got those, too. Like the time my daughter blew out on me while breastfeeding her on my lunch break right before a meeting. Yep, went into the meeting without noticing the big poo streak down the front of my skirt. Nice. So now I just work in my pajamas every day. Safer that way.

Six days after my wee girl was born, my husband and I ventured out to my company Christmas party being held at my boss’s house. My boss happened to be one of those very proper ladies who had a copy of Emily Post’s book of manners on her desk at work. Partway through the party, I excused myself to nurse my daughter, and my boss showed me into her bedroom. We were finishing up, and I thought, well, I might as well change her while I’m in here. I laid her down on a blanket on my boss’s footstool at the end of her bed. Mistake number one. I took off my daughter’s diaper. Mistake number two. While un-diapered, my daughter pulled her knees to her chest and let the biggest poo you can imagine shoot forth from her rear. Because she was horizontal, the poo also took a horizontal trajectory covering the footstool, the blanket and several feet of my boss’s perfect cream-colored carpet. All I could do was stand there, horrified, and gape at the day-glo yellow stain all over the carpet. While I was paralyzed, my daughter followed up with yet another huge squirt of poo. At this, I sprang back into action all the while muttering “ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, she’s going to fire me, ohmygod, ohmygod.” I mopped it up the best I could, which was pretty much not at all, got my daughter cleaned up and clothed, and meekly left the room to break the news. My boss was completely understanding about it, and rumor has it the stain came right out, but STILL. MORTIFIED.

I'm still reading, but E GADS, HBM, you deserve a new sweater, I think.

Lemme just say that I had a laminated (yes, I found it needed to be laminated) post it that I got made fun of for. I DO have a degree in planning; I can't help it. The post it got handed to the Huz before we left the house for him to check. I got to the point that I would refuse to leave the house unless he made sure we had everything on the list. I had too many situations like yours, although not as bad.

I kept a whole bunch of diapers in my car and forgot that…um…babies grow. By the time I needed one my daughter was too big for it. I was headed into the pediatrician for a check up. It dawned on me that they would have me take off her diaper for the exam. To have a new, clean one would be ideal. I honestly figured a pediatrician would have a few diapers, but nope. They looked at me like I was the first person to ever need one! I just put the wet diaper back on again. Luckily we were going right home so it wasn’t a big deal. I totally feel for you. I have never had a poo blowout like that. Knock on wood!

We have many ‘pooh baby’ stories. 1) Running out to the hardware store, just a quick errand so no diaper bag, only to find the kid sitting in the cart in a pool of liquid pooh. My husband ended up diapering her in paper towel and a wet but clean wrap, and we finished the errand. 2) Early morning plane to Florida. The kid is leaking, and there is no changing table in the bathroom. My husband is in the aisle, with the baby on the floor of the bathroom, and I’m cleaning up after him. We call that the ‘explode-a-baby’ episode. 3)My first experience with leaking – a friend and her baby, a nice resturant, and looking over and seeing pooh dripping down the highchair. We wrapped the kid up in a big blanket and got the food to go. 4) The episode that defines ‘poohing up his back.’ Do you really want details?

Our worst, we were driving home, about 15-20 minutes from our house when a foul smell began to emanate from the back seat. I turned and he had shot poo out his diaper, out the leg of his pants and all over the car seat. By the time I was able to scream (and oh god, I did) he picked some up in his hand, tasted it. AUGHHHH! and then flung it across the van where it slid down the window. At this point I became psycho, screaming not to eat it and wondering where on earth to touch anything. We made an unplanned stop at some (very forgiving) friends who thankfully threw our son into a bathtub and helped me rip apart the car seat and scrub the van. All I can say, is Please God, never again. I have a weak stomach and I can’t take it. The worst part was showing up at someone house, in that state and asking for help. I feal your pain.

OK… think picking up your newly adopted (constipated for four days) baby in Guatemala… you are walking through the airport and feel the wetness spreading up said baby’s back (no more constipation)… realize you just checked all your luggage and had already put on the cherished “coming home” outfit and forgot to pull out a spare.

Went into the TINY Guatemala public restroom where there is NO changing table so use the top of the garbage can instead… have ten Guatemalan women come in to watch you strip the baby naked and have no spare outfit to put on… shove outfit under the faucet to try and clean as best you can while throwing out the onesie… baby still screaming and try to dry the clothes under the hand dryer since you still have five hours of flight time ahead of you…

Pale pasty American woman with beautiful screaming Guatemalan baby being stripped naked and obviously not being comforted by her new mommy… stares from all the women wondering what on earth this poor baby was doing with her… realize poop was all over the new mommy as well… no stress at all!

I was stuck with a baby in a poo-smeared outfit and no replacement in the middle of winter once. Now that we have two and it’s hard to jam all the contingency supplies into one diaper bag I keep a small storage cube (probably about 1.5 cubic feet) in my trunk with wipes, lots of diapers for both kids, an extra outfit for each, and an extra shirt for me (I get spit-up on a LOT). If I’m out and my diaper bag runs out I can replenish from the car.

We call them poo-splosions, and lucky us my 6 month old daughter is prone to them.

At 3 mos old she went overnight from pooping 4-5x/day to not a drip for 11 days. Ped finally okays 1/2 infant enema, which should work in no more than an hour, it takes 8 hours. One good almost explosion. Then nothing for another full 8 days. Then we are out and about on a casual Saturday and I have fully converted to cloth diapers and CLOTH WIPES and I’m low on wipes, clean or dirty in the car when she explodes all over herself and the carseat. Car reeks, but we assume it’s our 5 year old farting. Hubby doesn’t know, so he picks her up and gets it all over himself too. (That smell, that mustard slick…you described them perfectly. I kept calling it peanut butter because it was all I could come up with, but really mustard is much better.) Anywho, I couldn’t stop laughing (and taking pictures) because, you know, I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t wearing it. After that I was afraid that my husband would no longer be on board with the cloth diapers, but as he said, nothing would have held it, and he sure did respect it for trying.

So my poo story is not in the same league as yours, but I could totally imagine myself there. I never ever go without a full package of disposable wipes now. Some things just aren’t meant to be tossed.

Good Lord … with posts like this, who needs antidepressants?! I got laughing so hard at the post and the comments I ran out of time to go pick up my new scrip from the drugstore before it closed, and I’ve laughed more in the last hour than I have in WEEKS.

So now, if all these lovely ladies would just be so kind as to post hysterically funny stories every day for, oh, the next six months or so …

Nothing quite so bad here, but I can tell you the story of the day I switched to reusable cloth wipes – Inigo did a poo that went from his ankles to his shoulder blades (under the clothes), and I used almost a packet of wipes cleaning both of us, the change table, and the floor of my very neat friends house!

And years ago, back when I was never going to have children, a friends baby exploded all over a picnic rug. She went to grab something to clean it all up with, and while she was gone one of her dogs came and “took care of” most of the mess.

Someone drove their car through the front doors of our local Kelsey’s a few weeks ago. That really has nothing to do with your story, but I think I’d rather be covered in poo than glass and drywall and insurance nightmares. Maybe Kelsey’s is just bad luck??

people who dont have kids always have all sorts of grand ideas of how they will be when they are parents. Ha. Its harder than it looks, people! As for the poop story – when my boys were 2 & 3, the 3 year old was newly potty trained. I went up to get my 2 year old from his crib and found that he had pooped, taken off his clothes and his diaper, and thrown the poop all around the room. there were pieces in his crib, on the floor – pretty much everywhere. it took me a long time to clean the whole thing up but when we finally came downstairs, clean, poop thrown out, sheets changed, etc… my 3 year old was standing in the hallway, in a puddle of pee, with….yep, you guessed it. poopy underwear!!!

That was a fantastic poop story! You handled it so well – I’m just imagining that poor woman’s face … I was laughing with you, not at you, really! I think you did just great … and your hubby hero with the glass of wine… good call.

I have my share of them, poop stories I mean, but I think I’ve blocked most of them from my mind now that we’ve been diaper/ pull up free for a year. I still carry an extra set of clothes and a pack of wipes with us everywhere …old habits die hard.

Some things you just never forget–when my daughter, who is now 34 years old, was a baby, my mother and I took her and my son to lunch at McDonalds. Becca was sitting in a high chair, when Mt. Vesuvious erupted. The lava flow of liquid baby poo pour out of her diaper, down the legs of the high chair, and onto the floor. My mother gagged. I wanted to fall through a hole in the floor. Mother took my son to the car, while I tried to clean up the mess. It was so horrible that even now, 34 years later, I can not go into a McDonald’s, the memory is that embarassing.